Reeva’s parents reflect on her 40th birthday amid Oscar Pistorius’ parole battle

Reeva Steenkamp’s parents, June and Barry, will not be opposing convicted killer Oscar Pistorius’ court battle as they are celebrating what would have been their daughter’s 40th birthday tomorrow.

Pistorius has approached the Constitutional Court to resolve apparent confusion over his eligibility for parole.

“They are focusing on commemorating what would have been Reeva’s 40th birthday on Saturday,” said Tania Koen, spokesperson for the Reeva Steenkamp Foundation.

In Pistorius’ application to the ConCourt, he stated that the determination of his parole date was a matter of urgency and added every day he spent behind bars and was prohibited from applying for parole until August next year, constituted an infringement on his fundamental rights.

Pistorius was initially sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in 2014 for culpable homicide after he shot and killed Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day 2013.

The high court in 2016 sentenced him to six years for murder dolus eventualis (with intent), which was put aside by the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2017 and substituted with a 13-yearand-five-month imprisonment.

The maximum release for his parole was set for 5 December, 2029, and the minimum (half sentence) passed on 21 March this year.

Law expert Dr Llewelyn Curlewis said the ConCourt would, for once and all, clarify his parole.

“I’m in favour of getting clarity. He should very soon – if not already – be eligible for parole. He has paid his dues to society,” he said.

Curlewis said one way or the other, Pistorius was going to get parole.

“To keep him there another month or two purely because they had a problem with their calculations doesn’t seem fair.

“If the ConCourt says he has to stay a few more months, so be it,” he said.

There was no real benefit of keeping him there forever, Curlewis said.

“He is the one person that has shown remorse and rehabilitated over the past couple of years being incarcerated.”

Conflict criminologist Dr Casper Lötter said because Pistorius killed Steenkamp on Valentine’s Day, the case was symbolic of endemic violence against women in a patriarchal society.

“Even though Oscar is supposedly rehabilitated and ready to be released, we must ask ourselves to what extent society has been rehabilitated.

“The society I’m referring to is the society that produced men with deep misogynistic traits against women.

“But it also produced women like Steenkamp, who have had enough compassion to take a man like Pistorius under her wing and nurture him, while he undoubtedly harboured deep feelings of hatred toward her and women in general.”

Lötter said although Steenkamp’s family has expressed misgivings about the possibility of Pistorius’ release on parole, he was only part of the problem.

Neither him, nor they, may even be aware of the wider context in which crimes against women are produced and committed.

“Perhaps the state has also failed us in not creating the conditions to eliminate or at least ameliorate criminality against women,” he said.